Favour and disgrace goad as it were to madness; high rank hurts keenly as our bodies hurt.”

What does it mean to say that favour and disgrace goad as it were to madness? It means that when a rule's subjects get it they turn distraught, when they lose it they turn distraught. That is what is meant to by saying favour and disgrace goad as it were to madness. What does it mean to say that high rank hurts keenly as our bodies hurt? The only reason that we suffer hurt is that we have bodies; if we had no bodies, how could we suffer?

Therefore we may accept the saying: “He who in dealing with the empire regards his high rank as through it were his body is the best person to be entrusted with rules; he who in dealing with the empire loves his subjects as one should love one's body is the best person to whom one commit the empire.”

Favor and disgrace are things that startle;
High rank is, like one's body, a source of great trouble.

What is meant by saying favor and disgrace are things that startle?
Favor when it is bestowed on a subject serves to startle as much aswhen it is withdrawn.
This is what is meant by saying that favor and disgrace are thingsthat startle.
What is meant by saying that high rank is, like one's body, a sourceof great trouble?
The reason I have great trouble is that I have a body.
When I no longer have a body, what trouble have I?

Hence he who values his body more than dominion over the empire canbe entrusted with the empire.
He who loves his body more than dominion over the empire can be giventhe custody of the empire.

The Way and Its Power – Dao De Jing I. 13. – Chinese on/off – Français/EnglishAlias Daode Jing, Dao De Jing, Tao Te Ching, Tao Teh Ching, le Tao-tö-king, Lao-Tzu Te-Tao Ching, the Laozi, Lao Zi, the Lao Tze, le Lao-tseu, The Book of the Way and its Virtue, the Way and its Power.